Bain seeks $3.5b for fourth Asia fund

The projected timeline was cited in a disclosure by Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS), which expects to commit $200 million in the fund.

The pension system invested $100 million in Bain's second Asia vehicle and $130 million in its third. Fund II closed at $2.3 billion in 2012, while Fund III took seven months to reach its institutional hard cap of $3 billion in late 2015. Bain employees put in a further $250 million into the third fund. They are expected to contribute $350 million to the new vehicle, of which 25% will come from Asia team members.

As of June, Asia Fund II had generated a multiple of 2.08x and a net IRR of 25.3%, while Asia Fund III had delivered a 1.29x multiple and a 60.9% IRR. The firm has deployed $8.3 billion - from multiple funds - across 46 investments in the region, making realizations of $11.7 billion.

Bain has 70 private equity professionals in the region, including 13 dedicated operating professionals. It has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Mumbai, Sydney, and Seoul. 

Asia Fund IV will follow a similar strategy to its predecessors, targeting equity investments of $100-400 million across the consumer, financial, healthcare, technology, and industrial sectors. Deal targeting themes will include market leaders, scalability, underserved markets, brands, and accretive expansion potential.

The firm's major investments in the last 12 months have been cross-border and complex in nature. In addition to leading a consortium that acquired Toshiba Memory Corporation for $18 billion, Bain completed a successful tender offer for advertising agency Asatsu-DK despite opposition from the largest shareholder and merged US-based World Wide Packaging with a Chinese peer.

PSERS had $56.7 billion in assets as of June. Should it commit $200 million to the Bain fund, its total alternatives exposure would be $13.5 billion, including $9.3 billion in private equity and $2 billion in venture capital.

The pension system is an active investor in Asia, which it describes pan-regionally as a politically stable growth market, albeit with “consistently high valuations.”  Recent commitments include $75 million to Orchid Asia’s seventh fund, which closed at $1.3 billion earlier this year.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Fundraising
• Buyout
• GPs
• Asia
• Bain Capital Asia
• Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS)
• Consumer
• Financial Services
• healthcare
• Technology